In case you haven’t seen yet, we will be holding an event next week on the anniversary of Citizens United with Change Congress’ Larry Lessig, Michael Boos with Citizens United, Spencer Overton, Cleta Mitchell, and ABC’s Amy Walter: http://www.publicampaign.org/blog/2011/01/13/panel-one-year-after-citizens-united. Join us! Fair Elections/Campaign Finance The fallacies of the Citizens United decision Robert Weissman compares Justice Kennedy’s majority opinion in Citizens United to Tom Donahue’s comment that he’ll continue to hide his donors. Congress/2012 Barack Obama’s 2012 cash challenge Bracing for a half-billion dollar onslaught of Republican outside money, Obama’s advisers are hitting up their big donors and bundlers from 2008 to make sure they are prepared. “But a billion dollar presidential re-election bid is unlikely to be launched or sustained for long exclusively with small donors.” Next RNC chief has a tough job Michael Steele will likely lose his job today, with a lot of discussion about having an RNC Chair that can raise money as easily as some of the 2010 outside groups. RNC finances suffer from loss of major donors “Hundreds of major donors have abandoned the Republican National Committee, leaving it $20 million in debt and threatening its future as a central player in the 2012 presidential election.” Other/States Ethics bill clears House judiciary The West Virginia House is pushing an ethics bill, one that would prohibit statewide elected officials, legislators, cabinet secretaries and department heads from being employed as lobbyists within a year of leaving their positions. Legislators eye crackdown on PACs A PAC-to-PAC transfer ban has been introduced in Washington State. MoveOn’s top spokesperson is moving on Congrats to our friend Ilyse Hogue on her new job!